Industry veteran, Ian Irvine, joins board of Clir Renewables

Clir Renewables is delighted to announce the appointment of Ian Irvine to its Board of Directors. Ian has over three decades of experience in the renewable energy industry, beginning his career with a wind turbine design company in the mid-80s before moving to ScottishPower Technology in 1990 and most recently founding award-winning renewable energy consultancy SgurrEnergy. His experience will be invaluable in ensuring the continued growth of the business.

“I am delighted to be joining the board of Clir Renewables. I have always had an affinity with innovative and ambitious renewable energy enterprises and look forward to working with the global team to help customers take advantage of Clir Renewables software offering,” said Ian Irvine.

Throughout his career, Ian has shown his desire to push the industry forward. With ScottishPower Technology Ian developed a team focused on producing accurate, long-term annual energy production (AEP) predictions, selecting wind turbine technology suitable for its deployment location and holding turbine suppliers to account on contractual agreements which were not conventional approaches at the time. Following ScottishPower’s divestment of its business, Ian and one of his engineering colleagues decided to start a renewable energy engineering consultancy focusing on accurate analysis, reporting and effective project delivery.

Converting his apartment’s attic into an office, Ian and his business partner founded SgurrEnergy in 2002. The business grew quickly, and by 2008 the head office in Glasgow had 80 staff with international offices in China, India, Ireland, and Canada and by 2017, when Ian exited SugrrEnergy, the global staff complement exceeded 300. Ian was involved in many industry firsts, the first internationally funded Chinese wind farm and the first project financed offshore wind farm. He also worked on some of the world’s largest projects, such as Europe’s largest wind farm in the 1990s, the 322 MW Whitelee Wind Farm (now 539 MW), attributes of vision, ambition and scale that will be invaluable to Clir Renewables going forward.

Ian’s passion for driving the industry forward led to the development of a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) unit to remotely assess wind speed and direction. SgurrEnergy launched its LiDAR, Galion, at the EWEA conference in 2008. The development continued following an investment agreement with Wood Group in 2010, whereby a team under Ian’s instruction developed a service offering to optimize wind farm production. Ian continually encouraged his staff to identify and exploit opportunities to help the industry progress before exiting the business in 2017.

“Having worked closely with Ian in the past, it made sense to ask him to join Clir Renewables on our journey. His knowledge of renewable energy is vast, and his business skills have seen him successfully operate in a variety of countries, and we plan to capitalize on that,” said Gareth Brown, CEO of Clir Renewables.

Ian joins Jenny Yang on the Clir Renewables board. Jenny, a serial entrepreneur, and angel investor joined the board of Clir Renewables in 2018 with a wealth of experience in operating software companies. Having founded and subsequently sold two AI companies, Jenny has a background in investment consultancy and electrical engineering.

Having a board with such a wealth of business and technical knowledge and experience ensures Clir Renewables continues on its upward growth trajectory.